[...]... standard for enterprise programming with Ruby (as there is with J2EE or NET), everything you need is readily available The most important libraries come with every Ruby distribution, and the standard distribution has grown rapidly over the last years All the other stuff can be found in public places such as RubyForge1 or the Ruby Application Archive.2 1 http://www.rubyforge.org 2 http://raa .ruby- lang.org... exception Enterprise integration often means integration with standard software such as databases, LDAP repositories, message queues, ERM systems, and so on If you’re using one of these technologies, chances are good that you’re doing some enterprise integration 1.3 Why Ruby? Most enterprise software running today was written in languages such as COBOL, C/C++, and Java Because of its distributed nature, enterprise. .. management system MySQL support in Ruby was made possible by the great work of Tomita Masahiro He has developed both a C library binding called MySQL /Ruby4 and a pure Ruby binding called Ruby/ MySQL.5 Thanks to a patch written by Matt Mower, Ruby/ MySQL now also works with MySQL version 4.1.1 and later.6 In this book we’ll use the pure Ruby implementation (for no special reason) As with our order database we... unusual—that the software or data of two different enterprises has to be integrated If you’re using a payment gateway to bill your customers, for example, you’re effectively integrating enterprise software You might ask yourself whether every development activity in an enterprise environment is some kind of enterprise integration There are a few exceptions Enterprise integration does not happen when you build... happens whenever you use an existing enterprise resource to achieve some results If you use an existing database or web service in your application, you’re performing enterprise integration If you build a new component that is used by other pieces of your existing architecture, you’re doing enterprise integration, too Integration needn’t just happen inside a single enterprise It’s quite possible—and... and XML-RPC Obviously, as an enterprise software developer, you’re better off if you know how to deal with such technologies You shouldn’t be troubled by the details of reading from a relational database or accessing an LDAP repository Mastering skills such as these help you concentrate on the fun stuff—the application itself 1.2 What Is Enterprise Integration? Enterprise integration is a rather vague... Gone are the days when you could store 1 http://raa .ruby- lang.org/project/oracle 2 http://rubyforge.org/projects /ruby- oci8 3 http://rubyforge.org/projects /ruby9 i 11 T HE C OUPON A PPLICATION Storing Addresses—A Plea from the Rest of the World Even though addresses are critical for many purposes, their data representation is often performed carelessly and without foresight In particular, aspects of internationalization... had to guess whether a certain binary executable is the right one We will show you Ruby s strengths and how Ruby helps you accomplish many tasks much faster, more elegantly, and with more fun than with any other programming language available today But, even more important, we will also tell you about Ruby s weaknesses Ruby is comparatively young, and although the core of the language is mature and lots... Thomas and Andy Hunt for giving me the opportunity to write this book for the Pragmatic Bookshelf Working with them has been both an honor and a pleasure I couldn’t imagine better or more professional working conditions It would be impossible to write a book about software for enterprise integration without the software itself The following gentlemen kindly made their ingenious work public for free and... been 7 Chapter 2 Databases Database management systems are one of the oldest and most widely used applications in information technology—they are indispensable to enterprises It’s nearly impossible to do some serious enterprise integration without touching some kind of database directly or indirectly Various types exist (relational databases, object-oriented databases, directory services, XML databases, . for enterprise programming with Ruby (as there is with J2EE or .NET), everything you need is readily available. The most important libraries come with. could store 1 http://raa .ruby- lang.org/project/oracle 2 http://rubyforge.org/projects /ruby- oci8 3 http://rubyforge.org/projects /ruby9 i THE COUPON APPLICATION